Trading System

A group of venture capitalists will unveil plans today for a Europe-wide trading system for small companies' shares. The 294-member European Venture Capital Association is sponsoring the proposed system, known as the European Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation system, or EASDAQ. The screen-based EASDAQ would be similar the system run by NASDAQ Stock Market Inc. in the United States. The EASDAQ system would directly challenge the London Stock Exchange, Europe's biggest bourse, in the trading of small companies' shares.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- The United States is the odd man out as diplomats, scientists and environmentalists from more than 190 countries gather at the 10th meeting of the United Nations' Convention on Climate Change. The convention's Kyoto Protocol, with its mandatory reduction of "greenhouse gases" that cause global warming, goes into effect next year. Discussions of new limits are expected to begin here when official delegations arrive Wednesday, near the end of the 12-day conference.

The Nasdaq Stock Market, already criticized for missteps in implementing a small-order trading system, has admitted to a blunder in its new high-tech trading software.This weekend, traders installed the trading software as part of a Nasdaq effort to upgrade its small-order trading systems to a more advanced Windows platform. But when traders Monday performed the keystrokes that enter a command to execute a trade, messages on the screen confirmed that the trade was taking place on the N-Prove system, a Nasdaq experiment that was effectively scrapped before it was implemented.

BIRTHDAYS Charles Conaway, chairman, CEO Kmart Corp., 41, today ON TV Bloomberg Small Business, 6 a.m. Minority Business Report, 7 a.m. CNET News.com, 4 p.m. Market Week With Maria Bartiromo, 5 p.m. Industries RETAIL EX-EMPLOYEES SUE WAL-MART Wal-Mart brainwashes its employees into working overtime without pay, former workers claim in a class-action lawsuit filed this week in Clinton County District Court in Iowa. The lawsuit, filed by former employees of the Wal-Mart in Clinton, seeks lost pay and other damages on behalf of all Wal-Mart employees in Iowa.

World Commerce Online Inc. introduced Floraplex, the floral industry's first online business-to-business trading system, on Thursday at the Floraworld trade convention in Atlanta. ``Through Floraplex, wholesalers will be able to purchase their products for the first time directly online from growers all over the world,'' said Bill Mobley, founder and president of the Orlando-based company. Floraplex takes a percentage of every transaction through the system. Trading is to begin Feb.14.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission Thursday approved the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's computerized trading system for futures and options contracts.Transactions in the first U.S. futures trading system not to be conducted on the floor of a futures exchange is not expected to begin until October, however.''This is the first attempt by a U.S. exchange to apply innovation,'' CFTC Chairman Wendy Gramm said. ''Innovation is essential if the U.S. is to maintain its competitive edge.''Gramm said the CFTC chose to maintain its scheduled consideration of Globex despite the FBI probe into alleged fraudulent trading practices at the Chicago exchanges.

Global 24-hour-a-day stock trading will move a step closer to reality April 22 when the U.S. over-the-counter market and the London Stock Exchange begin swapping electronic quotations on 600 stocks of international interest.The information exchange is part of a growing movement within the world securities industry to create a global stock market that would be open almost 24 hours a day.The new international link is being forged between the National Association of Securities Dealers, which operates the burgeoning over-the- counter, or NASDAQ, market, and the London Stock Exchange, which has developed an electronic trading system similar to that used by NASDAQ.

One of the Nasdaq Stock Market's bigger woes - how to handle the surge in trading volume - may vanish Friday when the first phase of an upgrade and speed-up of its trading system kicks in.Nasdaq's trading volume has soared in recent years, growing faster than Nasdaq officials could have possibly dreamed. And that has been the cause of one of the market's more nagging problems: the inability of its system to keep pace.The surging volume has repeatedly forced Nasdaq to suspend various trading functions, such as SelectNet broadcasting, which allows dealers to send bids and offers anonymously throughout the Nasdaq system.

BIRTHDAYS Charles Conaway, chairman, CEO Kmart Corp., 41, today ON TV Bloomberg Small Business, 6 a.m. Minority Business Report, 7 a.m. CNET News.com, 4 p.m. Market Week With Maria Bartiromo, 5 p.m. Industries RETAIL EX-EMPLOYEES SUE WAL-MART Wal-Mart brainwashes its employees into working overtime without pay, former workers claim in a class-action lawsuit filed this week in Clinton County District Court in Iowa. The lawsuit, filed by former employees of the Wal-Mart in Clinton, seeks lost pay and other damages on behalf of all Wal-Mart employees in Iowa.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - Hughes Electronics Corp. said Wednesday it would invest $1.4 billion in the first system of its Spaceway global broadband satellite. Spaceway will provide a vehicle for high-speed communications for data, video, voice and traffic. The system will allow customers to pay only for the amount of network space they actually use. The first system is scheduled to begin operation in North America in 2002. It will ultimately allow applications such as video conferencing, distance learning and Internet services to be received faster and more cheaply than with current land-based systems, Hughes said.

BEIJING - China will launch its third major telecommunications company next month in its attempt to bring competition to a sector long dominated by a government monopoly, the official China Daily reported Sunday.China Netcom Corp. is using $50 million in government money to offer high-speed data services for big businesses and Internet service companies in 15 cities, the newspaper reported in its Business Weekly edition.China Netcom will use Internet Protocol technology, which helps networks run faster and more efficiently, the newspaper said.

A small company near Orlando International Airport has yet to generate any revenue or profit. Yet the stock of this new, publicly traded business has been a high flier, quadrupling in a matter of months.Safe bet it's an Internet outfit.Although World Commerce Online Inc. is no Amazon.com, the 30-employee company is riding the ``e-commerce'' investment wave with the recent launch of Floraplex, an Internet-based trading system for the flower industry.Last week the company's stock hit another all-time high of more than $13 a share, up from less than $3 a share in March, on the news it would launch a second trading system, called Freshplex, for the fresh-produce industry.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - Hughes Electronics Corp. said Wednesday it would invest $1.4 billion in the first system of its Spaceway global broadband satellite. Spaceway will provide a vehicle for high-speed communications for data, video, voice and traffic. The system will allow customers to pay only for the amount of network space they actually use. The first system is scheduled to begin operation in North America in 2002. It will ultimately allow applications such as video conferencing, distance learning and Internet services to be received faster and more cheaply than with current land-based systems, Hughes said.

World Commerce Online Inc. introduced Floraplex, the floral industry's first online business-to-business trading system, on Thursday at the Floraworld trade convention in Atlanta. ``Through Floraplex, wholesalers will be able to purchase their products for the first time directly online from growers all over the world,'' said Bill Mobley, founder and president of the Orlando-based company. Floraplex takes a percentage of every transaction through the system. Trading is to begin Feb.14.

The $25 billion-a-year flower industry is joining the Internet age, with an Orlando company helping to speed the process.World Commerce Online Inc. announced a strategic relationship Monday with Eliance Corp. of Minneapolis to enable flower growers and wholesalers to buy and sell fresh-cut flowers more easily.The agreement will integrate Eliance's electronic payment system with World Commerce's Internet-based trading network for the cut-flower industry.Eliance will provide back-office support, freeing World Commerce of Orlando to focus more on business expansion, company officials said.

One of the Nasdaq Stock Market's bigger woes - how to handle the surge in trading volume - may vanish Friday when the first phase of an upgrade and speed-up of its trading system kicks in.Nasdaq's trading volume has soared in recent years, growing faster than Nasdaq officials could have possibly dreamed. And that has been the cause of one of the market's more nagging problems: the inability of its system to keep pace.The surging volume has repeatedly forced Nasdaq to suspend various trading functions, such as SelectNet broadcasting, which allows dealers to send bids and offers anonymously throughout the Nasdaq system.

THE SECURITIES and Exchange Commission Thursday approved a trading system that will give investors a crack at dealing big U.S. stocks during the early-morning hours and will be a step closer to global trading. The new NASDAQ International Service will let investors trade large over-the-counter stocks during European trading hours - well before dealing starts in the United States.HOTELSHILTON HOTELS Corp. said Thursday it earned $18.8 million in the third quarter. That compared with $21.9 million in the same period a year earlier.

A tiny office in Los Angeles with only 18 employees is going to become the first brokerage ever to offer a 24-hour trading system in nationally traded stocks.Initially, Spear Securities' 24-Hour Market, which starts Aug. 26, will deal only in the stocks that make up Standard & Poor's listing of 100 active stocks. At first, trades will be limited to 500 shares.The idea is to provide a way for small investors to buy and sell stocks from the time the market closes until it opens. That could be especially attractive to investors who read a story in the morning newspaper, which they believe could affect the price of a stock when it opens.

The Nasdaq Stock Market, already criticized for missteps in implementing a small-order trading system, has admitted to a blunder in its new high-tech trading software.This weekend, traders installed the trading software as part of a Nasdaq effort to upgrade its small-order trading systems to a more advanced Windows platform. But when traders Monday performed the keystrokes that enter a command to execute a trade, messages on the screen confirmed that the trade was taking place on the N-Prove system, a Nasdaq experiment that was effectively scrapped before it was implemented.

A group of venture capitalists will unveil plans today for a Europe-wide trading system for small companies' shares. The 294-member European Venture Capital Association is sponsoring the proposed system, known as the European Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation system, or EASDAQ. The screen-based EASDAQ would be similar the system run by NASDAQ Stock Market Inc. in the United States. The EASDAQ system would directly challenge the London Stock Exchange, Europe's biggest bourse, in the trading of small companies' shares.